1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a picture transmission/reception system that allows to acquire picture data representative of a picture related to the same subject-of-display as a subject-of-display (subject-of-representation) corresponding to a picture among time-series pictures (motion pictures or time-series still pictures), for example, to acquire by utilization of, for example, a televised broadcast, wired picture distribution service or the like as a supply source of picture information, and to a picture receiver apparatus and printer suited for the system.
2. Related Art
Recently, it is a usual practice to obtain a hard copy by using the picture data acquired through utilization of a televised broadcast, wired picture distribution service or the like and perform a printing of the picture data at a printer held by the user.
Generally, where receiving and printing the digital broadcast data distributed from a broadcast station by a plurality of picture receiver apparatuses, there are usually connected a variety of models of receivers and printers that are different in function (specification).
For this reason, the distribution contents are prepared uniform in picture-quality level by taking account of every model possibly applied at all times, and there is a difficulty in actualizing an effective function only for those models possessing excellent capabilities or particular models. Namely, some models are difficult in exhibiting their inherent functions, which is conspicuously unreasonable in respect of functions and economy.
In place of using, for printing, the picture data acquired by utilization of a televised broadcast, a wired picture distribution service or the like, there are now proposed such technologies that can acquire and print the picture data acquired from a server, etc. connected to a network, the data having a processability that attributes to higher quality than that of the picture data of the related art.
Such technical proposals include an example that a broadcast receiver acquires moving-picture data and a pointer, as information representative of a location of a picture related to the frames of the data, and, when there is a print request from a user, access a storage location as designated by the pointer related to a selected frame of the moving-picture data, to acquire the information stored in the storage location and print-output the same so that it broadcasts in a multiplex form from a broadcast station (e.g. JP-A-2002-232815 (paragraphs 0041-0059, FIGS. 5 and 7)).
However, the art proposed in JP-A-2002-232815 is a mere provision of convenience enabling to acquire a still picture excellent in processability attribute selected as a corresponding one to a scene (one frame) out of moving-picture broadcast. This is far from an automatic acquisition of the processability-attribute picture data that allows full exhibition of the capability as to the processability attribute for printing, in the case the user makes a printing by use of a printer as intended.
In other words, this could not cope with the foregoing problem that the model having a superior specification is not allowed to fully exhibit its function conspicuously unreasonably in respect of functions and economy, because, by taking account of every model possibly applied at the reception ends at all times, the content distribution end makes an adaptation uniformly to those having a comparatively inferior specification in function and processability attribute (attribute including a picture definition, for example) for quality.